PA judge blocks #VoterID law from taking effect in November.

A state judge has blocked Pennsylvania’s tough voter-identification law from
taking effect during the
November election.

In an 18-page ruling issued Tuesday, Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E.
Simpson said he wasn’t convinced that the measure requiring voters to show photo
ID at the polls wouldn’t keep some people from voting.

Two weeks ago, the state Surpeme Court ordered Simpson, a former Northampton
County court judge, to block the law unless he determined that there would be no
disenfranchisement and that new state-issued voter ID cards were easy to obtain.

Opponents of the law, considered one of the most restrictive in the nation,
hailed Simpson’s decision as a victory, even as the law’s chief architect
denounced it as “out of bounds with the rule of law.”

On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, who supports the law, said the state
had not made up its mind on whether it would appeal Simpson’s decision to the
state Supreme Court.

Lawyers on both sides, meanwhile, agreed that Simpson’s ruling effectively
leaves in place the same ground rules used during the April 24 primary. There,
voters were asked to produce photo identification and those without it were
informed about the ID requirement. All voters were allowed to vote.

Simpson’s narrowly tailored ruling blocked language in the law requiring
people without proper identification to cast what’s known as a “provisional
ballot” and then return to county election offices within six days to provide
proof of their identity.

Duquesne University law professor Bruce Ledewitz said he believes Simpson
reached the correct decsion given the narrow instructions the state Supreme
Court delivered in its Sept. 18 decision.

Ledewitz said Simpson's decision to allow voters to cast ballots in the normal
way, regardless of whether they have ID avoids further confusion and
controversy.

“I think he was very keen not to treat the people without voter IDs
differenntly from everone else for fear that might discourage them from voting,”
Ledewitz said.

In his ruling, Simpson said he was sympathetic to state officials’ claims
that they were doing everything they could to fix glitches in the law as they
appeared.

But with just five weeks to go before Election Day, Simpson said he
“question[ed] whether sufficient time now remains to” get state-issued ID to
every voter before the polls open.

In his ruling, Simpson noted that 9,300 to 9,500 non-drivers photo
identification cards had been issued by the state Department of Transportation
and that just 1,300 to 1,350 voting-only ID cards had been issued through the
Department of State.

Simpson said he “expected more photo IDs to have been issued by this time,”
and that he accepted the challengers’ claims that, between now and Election Day,
“the gap between the photo IDs issued and the estimated need will not be
closed.”

Critics of the law were predicting chaos at the polls as election workers
tried to enforce a Republican-authored statute that they claim was intended to
keep traditionally Democratic voters at home.

Backers said the law was intended to ensure the integrity of elections and
the principle of “one-man, one vote.” But the law sparked a bitterly partisan
battle.

In a statement, Pennsylvania Democratic Chairman Jim Burn said Simpson’s
decision was a “significant victory in the fight to make sure everyone has the
right to vote in November.”

Still, party officials will remain “vigilant to ensure that voters are
educated about the voting process and they are protected when they cast their
vote,” Burn said.

With public polls showing support for the law, state Republican Chairman
Robert Gleason said he was disappointed by Simpson’s ruling.

“We shouldn’t have to wait for this commonsense reform to be enacted,” he
said. “Despite the empty rhetoric to the contrary, this legislation is still
about ensuring one person, one vote. Our party remains committed to the citizens
of the Commonwealth and we will do all that we can to ensure free and fair
elections.”

Simpson’s ruling allows the law to stand and “that is good,” Pennsyvlania
House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, one of the law’s most vocal
supporters, said in a statement.

“When votes are diluted through fraud, the system starts to break down. Voter
identification has always been about creating a level playing field where every
Pennsylvanian’s vote represents an equal opportunity to have a voice in
government,” Turzai said.

Local voter registration officials breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that
the spring primary truly was a dry run for November. Poll workers can be told to
stick with the same procedures they used in April, said Dee Rumsey, Northampton
County’s director of voter registration and elections.

“We did not begin training yet, so we are good,” Rumsey said. “I think it
will actually be better for lines, it won’t hold up the voting process. It will
be a little smoother.”

Lehigh County will have some retraining to do, pending some formal
instruction from the Department of State. Some poll workers were trained Monday
in the Voter ID procedures Simpson put on hold. Others are scheduled for classes
this week.

“We still have time to contact them,” Elections Director Tim Benyo said. “I’d like to see what the
state says so I only have to bother them once.”

Both said they were relieved that they will not have to deal with a flood of
provisional ballots that would have been filed by voters who arrived at the
polls without ID under the old rules.

While Tuesday’s decision preserves the current legal status quo, an
underlying constitutional challenge to the law remains unresolved. In a
conference call with reporters, one of the lawyers involved, David Gersch, said
it’s too soon to tell how that challenge might unfold.

The state Supreme Court is set to meet in Pittsburgh during the week of Oct.
15 and could hold a hearing on any potential appeal then. It’s possible that
court could hand down a ruling on the same day it holds oral arguments, said Vic
Walczak, the legal director for the state branch of the American Civil Liberties
Union, and one of the lead attorneys who challenged the law.

At a two-day hearing before Simpson last week, challengers to the law put on
a string of witnesses who testified that they’d made repeated trips to driver
licensing centers, only to face state employees flummoxed by complex eligibility
requirements and paperwork.

Lawyers for the state stressed the multimillion-dollar public relations blitz
intended to educate voters about the law, which would have required people to
show photo identification every time they voted.

Right now, the biggest challenge facing the state is making sure that voters
are informed that they will not, at least for this election, need photo
identification to vote, Walczak said.

“We have seen the commonwealth’s advertising – most of the ads say you need
ID on Election Day,” he said. “That would be false at this time. Hopefully, they
would pull those ads or make it clear that you don’t need ID. Otherwise, there’s
the possibility for confusion … and any time you have confusion on Election Day,
it’s not a good time for demoracy.”

In an interview with WHYY-FM in Philadelphia on Tuesday morning, Secretary of
State Carol Aichele said the agency, which oversees elections in the state,
intended to carry on with its public education efforts and would “await further
direction from the courts sometime in the future.”

Simpson’s decision to allow state officials to continue an advertising
campaign instructing voters to show their ID at the polls even after the
requirement is suspended has the potential to confuse people, said Keesha
Gaskins of the Brennan Center for Justice.

“It’s my hope that the public response in terms of voter education will be
clear that what it takes to have your ballot counted in 2012 is to just go and
vote,” Gaskins said. On Tuesday, Corbett said those concerns will be
addressed.

And even though the state has the right to take the case again to the state
Supreme Court, another appeal is unlikely because Simpson closely followed the
high court’s direction, Ledewitz said.

Current Comments

Despite the new ruling, there is a PA. state senator still insisting on television today that voters must show ID before they are able to vote. I say the commercial today more than once. And yesterday.
What gives?
Misinformation to confuse the voting public courtesy of Republican legislators?
Denial of the facts of Judge Simpson's decision?
Tea Party Rule?